


Devil may care

by ZeraphinnaWolf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Because my nougat son needs love, Dumb Crowley, Good Jack Kline, Hallucifer, M/M, Or Is It?, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Spoilers for Season 13, spoilers for season 12
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-02-04 13:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12772458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeraphinnaWolf/pseuds/ZeraphinnaWolf
Summary: When Sam and Dean are being held against their will by the government, Sam is visited by a much different Devil than what he remembers.orWhat if Lucifer wasn't just an asshole and Jack was a nice kid? What if everyone had their fix-it and Sam's life wasn't just death and pain?





	1. Confused government worker (Prologue)

When Lyla took her place in front of the monitors in the surveillance room of the Site 94, she had every reason to think that it would be a pretty normal day- well as normal as a day could be when you are blindfolded before going to work. Little did she know that she was in for a lot of surprises.

 

-

 

The first strange thing that happened that day, was when Sam Winchester, one of the two foolish brothers who had tried to kill the president, started whimpering in his sleep, repeating the same words over and over. Lyla frowned and amplified the volume of her speakers to try to hear what the man was saying. She only had a second to hear him mumble “Get me out.” “Get me out..”  “Get me out..” before the prisoner suddenly woke up screaming, almost making her deaf in the process. After a couple of seconds, she looked at the man she was supposed to supervise and frowned. It wasn’t really abnormal for him to wake up from nightmares if the way he was sweating and shaking almost every morning was a way to tell. No, the abnormal thing was that he had never once whimpered in his sleep or woke up screaming, chest panting as if fighting a really bad panic attack. As she looked at the man visibly trying to regain his calm, she wondered what could possibly scare someone like him to that point. 

 

A movement at the side of her vision caught Lyla’s attention and she looked at another monitor to see Dean Winchester, the other brother, awake and looking worried, knocking on the wall separating him and his brother, using morse code to communicate. Knowing morse code herself, it wasn’t difficult for Lyla to know what he was saying and she wasn’t surprised to see him ask if Sam was alright. Lyla looked over to Sam’s room and saw him sitting, head leaning against the wall, visibly  _ not _ alright. It took him some time and she could see how restless Dean was beginning to get without an answer but finally, Sam knocked on the wall, answering with a simple “nightmare”. Dean should have been at least a little relieved to know it only was a nightmare Lyla thought but the man stayed as worried as ever, playing with the screw he used to mark the days. Finally, after a long time without movement from any of the brothers, Dean moved down the wall in a sitting position and knocked. “Is it about him” it said and Lyla frowned. Dean visibly hesitated before knocking again. “Is it L-” he stopped after the first letter and looked sharply at the camera, silently wondering if he could say that word while being watched. Apparently not because he scoffed and looked at the floor. This time, no answer came from Sam and Lyla looked at the other monitor to find him shaking lightly. 

 

As Lyla looked at the images of Sam and Dean Winchester, she realized that it was the first time she saw the two men somewhat close to being helpless and broken. She didn't feel relieved to see the two men who had tried to kill the leader of her country finally losing hope as she had thought she would if the situation ever arrived. No… she felt.. ashamed and had the vague sensation of violating a really private moment. After a minute, she looked away. 

 

The first strange thing that happened to her that day was seeing the Winchester brothers losing hope.

 

-

 

After that, the day went back to normal, Sam walked around his cell, mumbled words to himself like he did everyday that Lyla still had a hard time understanding but took pride when she understood one of them. She kept a list of these words and tried to understand what it meant, if it could be useful to her bosses in their search of a possible terrorist community but really, it didn’t make a lot of sense. That day, she added another word to her list and sighed as she looked at her list and tried one more time to try to understand what they meant.

 

Weres, silver, borax, sun, beheading, leviathan, woodchipper, fangs, okami, salt, oil, blade.

 

It really didn’t make any sense. 

 

After that, Sam started his solo training, using a lot of different fighting styles and martial arts, training and burning whatever energy he had gained from his restless night. He usually worked until his arms and legs were shaking and his hair completely wet from sweating, and now wasn’t an exception. Afterwards, Sam walked tiredly to the wall between him and his brother to ask what day it is, how long it has been till they were taken. When he heard that it was day 88, Sam’s shoulders flinched and he nodded to himself before straightening and going to the door to take his food when the time came. Then, he started another training and Lyla just didn’t understand where he found the energy or the will to continue. 

 

-

 

After half an hour into his second training of the day, Sam suddenly stops mid push-up. He seems to be looking at something in front of him with horror and Lyla even tries to get a better look at the room to see if she is missing something but there really is nothing else than Sam in the room. Of course, she knows that but still.. he looks so horrified and scared and his eyes seem to follows something up before resting at one point as if looking directly at someone. A cold shiver runs down her back when she sees the prisoner try to crawl away in a corner, chest heaving frantically, words escaping his mouth and repeating over and over. “You aren’t real…” “Don’t touch me..” “No..” Lyla frowns when she saw him clawing desperately at his hand, drawing blood. 

 

Sam stays like this, tears in his eyes but never falling down his cheeks, arms wrapped around his panting chest and scrubbing his injured hand over the fabric of his shirt, aggravating his wound as he continues to whisper words like a broken record, for a good half an hour. After that, he simply let his head falls against the wall and seems to abandon himself. 

 

A couple of minutes passes before Lyla sees any other movement. Sam must have imagined someone talking because he says a little “Shut-up”. A beat passes before suddenly, Sam is getting up, slowly, tiredly and it takes Lyla some time to see that the man seems to be leaning against something where there isn’t anything. He walks in a way that isn’t possible alone before falling on his bed, curling in a tight ball and keeping his back to the room, head, and hands near the wall as if reaching for his brother. After a moment, Lyla sees the bed dips at Sam’s side unnaturally, as if someone really was sitting on it. At the same time, Sam flinches and curls on himself in an even smaller ball before whispering words Lyla almost misses. “It’s your fault you know. It’s your fault me and Dean are stuck here.” 

Frowning, Lyla amplified the volume one more time, trying to get every bit of information possible. If she could know why Sam and Dean had attacked the president, she would at least had accomplished something during her time in the Site 94. If she could just get other names from the terrorist commun- “It’s always your fault… ‘lways your fault Lucifer..” 

 

Lyla’s brain went blank and her pulse quickened while the hairs at the back of her neck stood up for an unknown reason. Her sudden behavior was unexplained until she heard another voice, coming from a figure sitting on the bed that had appeared from nowhere, voice different and colder than Sam’s but tainted with fondness and sadness. “You are right Sam.. It is my fault. But for now, please sleep.” The figure said, moving his hand to caress softly Sam’s bangs before moving to look at the camera, looking directly into Lyla’s eyes, with blood red eyes. 

 

Immediately after that, Sam’s eyelids fluttered closed as he fell into a blissful sleep. 

 

-

 

That day, Sam was the only one who slept soundlessly because, in Lyla’s case, she was incapable of getting the image of the man with blood red eyes out of her brain, incapable of calming herself. Fear paralyzed her in her bed as she remembered how the video of the man had mysteriously disappeared from the computer and she had checked to see if it had ever existed but couldn’t find any visual of the man. In the end, she started wondering if she had imagined it all until she had realized that she still had the video of Sam getting hauled up and tucked into bed, and still had a video of the bed dipping. 

 

Lyla didn’t know how late or how early in the morning it was when she started associating the figure with the Devil, but at one point, she was completely certain that she had seen Lucifer himself putting a prisoner in bed and taking the blame in the attempt to assassinate the president. 

 

And if when the military came to her house the next morning to take her to the site and they found her house empty with everything in order but her missing clothes, no one could blame her for running away.


	2. Escape and threats (Chapter 1)

“They are getting closer!” 

“I know Dean!” Sam snapped, panting and blood pouring in his ears. He could hear the trained soldiers in their wake and he knew they had to do something about them or it wouldn’t end well for him and Dean. Gritting his teeth, Sam looked around as he tried to think of something to do to help them in this situation. Their time limit was like a Damocles’ sword above their heads and he really didn’t want their time to run out before they had a chance to see Cas and Mary, he wanted to be able to hug his best friend and mother before being thrown in the Empty. The Empty.. the word itself was calming, a way to really end his- “Sam! Root!”

Startled, Sam had a second to step over said root and avoid spraining his ankle. He pointedly did not thank the blond running beside him and looked in front of them. He could still hear the soldiers behind them but it seemed that they had gained an advantage even if he knew they couldn’t outrun them as far as the road. 

“Stay focused Sam! And don’t think that I’ll let you go easy with that stupid fucking deal.” The Devil mumbled, his anger clear as day on his features, making Sam even more uneasy. Lucifer was just so.. so different from the first hallucinations that he didn’t know what to think about his situation. And honestly? It wasn’t a good time to think about this either.

-

In the end, the brothers had been lucky because not twenty minutes after the sound of the footsteps behind them had disappeared, surely because one of their lures had worked, they found a little cabin in the woods. Simple, it revealed to be quite the perfect place for an ambush once Sam and Dean inspected it, and soon, the two were arranging the cabin to serve its new purpose.

After maybe half an hour and the Devil’s help in Sam’s case, the brothers were ready and just had to wait in their position. Once Dean was outside, Sam walked to the trap in the floor, pulled it open and jumped in the cellar. He turned around and jumped, startled, as he saw that Lucifer was already there, leaning against the corner. As he walked to the wall at the opposite of the Devil and slid down against it, Sam fidgeted with the hunting knife he had found in the cabin. The hunter could feel Lucifer’s presence in the small place and it made him feel so small, so vulnerable. He didn’t even know if it was because of his soul’s memories of the Cage or because of his time with Hallucifer. His bet was on both.  
As Sam kept an ear out for the soldiers, he continued to toy with the blade of the knife, inspecting it for any trace of rust, Lucifer slowly pushed himself away from the corner and walked carefully towards Sam, a concerned frown disturbing his sharp features.

“Sam? What are y-”

“Shut up,” Sam muttered under his breath, fingers shaking as he interrupted the Devil. The Archangel’s voice gritted at his nerves, making his mind race and his head hurt as even more painful memories of the Cage tried to take over his thoughts. He curled his hand firmly around the knife’s handle. “Shut up.” He said again, voice shaking. “You’re not real, you aren’t really here. You’re still in the cage. In the cage..” His eyes tightly shut, Sam tried to push away the dark thoughts, which was frankly, quite hard when he had a knife in his hand and no more than a couple of hours left. 

“Sam..” Lucifer said anxiously, crouching in front of the younger Winchester, looking worriedly over his true vessel’s face. He could feel Sam’s distress and wondered what the hell he could have done to elicit such raw fear from him. It was even worse than before the Cage when Sam only knew him as ‘The Devil’. As he looked at Sam, really looked at him since the time he had gotten out of the Cage in Castiel’s vessel, but was so ecstatic to be out that he had never taken the time to look at Sam, Lucifer realised that he clearly didn’t have any remembrance from the Cage but maybe his soul never lost it’s instinct from that time. But even that, the Archangel was convinced, wouldn’t cause such a firm response from Sam, so there had to be something else that happened since that time. 

At the same moment Lucifer was gonna question Sam, footsteps were heard upstairs. Suddenly, Sam got up and whispered “I’m sorry Dean” and cut his left palm under Lucifer’s puzzled stare and flinched as he pressed his thumb against the wound. 

The next moment, Lucifer was gone and Sam was ready to fight for his and Dean’s, freedom.

-

Lucifer was pissed off.

He was pissed at Sam for accepting the deal with Billy but he was even angrier at himself for being the reason why he had to seal that stupid deal. As the Archangel thought back to a couple months back, when he was jumping from vessel to vessel he realized how stupid he had been. At the time he had thought he had a reason, that “wanting to see what kind of people humans with power are” didn’t justify the consequences. Fortunately, something in him changed after he conceived his child. 

As he looked at Kelly while she was sleeping, reaching out with his grace to feel the multiplying cells that would become his son, Lucifer realized how unfair the world would be with him. If he went on with his plan of an enormous genocide of the human species, every forces of heaven would be used to take his child away from him, because of his father’s actions. Lucifer knew what living in injustice was like and a growing part of him that cared and loved his child wanted to make sure the Nephilim would know it the least possible.

That night, Lucifer heavily warded the room Kelly slept in and left. He traveled to every place he could think of and looked at every human he could find. Of course, he saw many horrible things and even worse people, but a little voice at the back of his head that sounded a lot like Sam’s told him to stop looking for the evilness in the world. Once he listened to that voice, the Archangel finally saw the reason why the Winchesters were so keen to give their life for their species. 

He saw the unending love from a parent to a child, he saw someone give away some money and food to someone who needed it more, saw someone give an organ to a little girl who had been told they couldn’t find a donor, saw someone comfort and calm down a person who was about to jump off a bridge, a person who took a bullet to save their friend and much more. The Devil realized that night that he hadn’t been fair to the human race. Yes, he had been right to despise them because of how destructive they were, to hate them for foolishly exploiting and abuse his father’s creations but humans weren’t only that. They could be loving, gentle, caring, comforting and so much more. That night, he decided to give humanity a chance and if the first step was to go back once again in the Cage, then so be it. 

When he came back to the mother of his child, Lucifer knelt upon them and whispered loving prayers and promises in Enochian to the growing Nephilim, adding a little bit of grace to the words. As the sun slowly rose, he decided that the best way to make sure his child would grow in the best possible environment was to spare him from his father’s influence. Lucifer promised that morning to let his child grow with the best people he knew in terms of the scale good/wrong. He would find a way to make sure his child would be taught what being good meant, he would let other people care for him, love him and it only took him a moment to find the best suitable people for the task.  
He had to make sure that his child, the Devil’s progeniture, would grow up with the Winchesters.

But even if Lucifer changed for the best that night, it had been too late. Now, Sam and Dean had been put in danger and sealed another stupid deal and it was his fault.

As he looked at Sam’s back as the hunters slowly walked away from the soldiers, the Archangel turned around and stared at the two men in front of him. He forced himself to be visible since the time he had been able to once more use the bond between him and Sam since he had mysteriously forced him away by hurting himself, and studied the two men as they reached the conclusion as to who he was. To help them a little and for his own satisfaction, he let his eyes glow red and forced the shadow of his wings to be visible.

“Camp, Rick. I would say that it is a pleasure to finally meet you two, but it would be lying, and it’s not something I have a habit of doing.” He walked closer to them and ignored the feeling of his bond between Sam and him being stretched as he stayed away from the hunter. Quite normal when you knew his true vessel was the only reason he could appear on Earth at all. “You know, you two are an example of why I used to hate your kind so deeply before. You Camp for instance,” he said as he walked slowly towards the old man. He enjoyed the fear he could see in the man’s eyes, his shaking fingers. “You said you wanted to keep Sam and Dean Winchester locked away in this secret facilitation because you wanted to know every bit of information they could have. But that was a lie wasn’t it?” he asked and didn’t miss the slight intake of breath from the man. 

“No. You my dear sick fucker didn’t care if they told you what you needed. You just wanted to keep these two men locked in a place where you could see everything and just enjoy the way they would slowly break, slowly lose their sanity and that, one minute at a time.” He sighed and turned to look at the man still trapped in the bear trap. “ You aren’t better aren’t you my dear Rick? You said you wanted them dead and that was true, point for you. Alas, it wasn’t the whole truth either was it? You did wanted them dead but not before you had had your way with them. You see, I know every little ideas and experiment you wanted to do on them.” Lucifer crouched in front of the man and stared at him. “And you know what? These are very dark and incredibly deranged thoughts and desires.” 

The Archangel got up and walked back a few feet, looking at the men and finally smiled innocently. “You two are lucky. A couple of weeks before, I would’ve killed you in a horrible way already. But you know what? Not anymore.” He saw the hope shine in the men’s eyes and smirked. “Now, I will let you live and even encourage you two to live your life to it’s fullest because when you die, you will have a very special treatment from me or one of my highly trained demons.” The Archangel fully enjoyed the moment the men understood what he was talking about, the way that new hope died and how their eyes slowly begged him for mercy. Not something he was very keen to give when they had hurt his protégé. 

“You see, when you die, you will endure the punishment that best serves you. What you wanted to inflict on the Winchesters, it will be done to you. Over and over again, until you will have purged your punishment. And by the way, we have all of eternity for that, just saying.” He winced internally at the painful pull the stretched bond caused him and nodded at the two men, pointing at Rick’s hurt leg. “Might want to get that checked out, we wouldn’t want you to die before living a couple of years with the knowledge of how horrible it’s going to be once you die huh? Constantly worrying is a part of the punishment.. might drive you insane sooner than later. Until next time, I bid you good luck.” Lucifer turned his back to the men and disappeared, returning at Sam’s side. 

After all, he had a reaper to take care off. 

-

How could it have gone so bad, so fast?

He was supposed to be done with it all. He was supposed to be the one to go in the Empty, to disappear. He was supposed to be forgotten. 

But no, once Billie had told what the deal included to Mary and Castiel, Mary had immediately claimed the place of the Winchester that had to die. Billie had looked at Sam as if knowing his inner desire and accepted Mary’s offer.

At the moment Mary was gonna end her life for her boys, they all heard a sickening gasp coming from the reaper and they all turned around to see Billie, eyes wide and glowing with an angel blade sticking out of her chest. Once the reaper collapsed on the floor, dead, they all saw Castiel, chest heaving and furious eyes searching them. Everything led them to believe the angel had killed Billie, but something was off to Sam’s point of view. Castiel looked surprised, a little hesitant too and had looked strangely around them, but before Sam had been able to come up with any conclusion, the angel composed himself and yelled at them about how stupid that move had been. How he couldn’t lose any of them and the world needed them too. There was so much hurt in his voice and fear that Sam regretted a little having wished for a quick way out. 

It took them a while but the lot of them, an ex blood-junkie Boyking of Hell that had been possessed by too much creatures, the Righteous man that had once been a demon and had died too many times to count, a fallen angel with one hell of a family problem, and a mother who didn’t know her son because she had been dead for 33 years, finally came back home, a bunker. 

Dean and Mary immediately went inside, Dean probably going to sleep for a week or bake a pie, depended on the state of the kitchen. Mary was probably going too.. Sam realized he had no idea what his mother was going to do.. kinda sad. But anyway, Sam was left alone with the angel. 

When he was going to enter the bunker, Sam heard Castiel call his name and turned around to look at him. 

“Yes, Cas?”

The angel audibly sighed and looked at the hunter with an unreadable expression. “I know.. I know it may look like I did, but I did not kill the reaper, even if I wanted to.” he said, scratching the back of his neck before continuing. “Yes I stabbed her with my blade, but she was already dead. I also think I have not been plagued by the curse from the imbalance on the cosmical scale caused by breaking the blood deal.” He stopped for a second before walking towards Sam and checking behind.for any trace of Mary or Dean. When he found none, he looked the hunter in the eyes. “Do you happen to have an idea of who or what may have killed the reaper?”

Yes, he had an idea, but it was completely impossible.  
Sam also couldn’t about his suspicions with the angel because he would probably tell Dean. But.. Castiel had also said yes to Lucifer and hid it from them, maybe if Sam asked him, he would stay silent about the whole thing? It was worth trying because being able to talk to someone about the hallucinations would be fantastic. 

It took Sam a second to decide and he hoped he had made the right decision. 

“Actually Cas.. I think I may have an idea of who could’ve killed Billie but it’s impossible.”

“Who are you thinking about?” The angel inquired, frowning a little. 

“Wait. Before telling you, I need to know you can keep this from Dean, just don’t mention it to him. Please?”

At this, Castiel looked even more puzzled. “I believe it isn’t wise to keep things from him, but if you want, I can keep this to myself.”

Sam released a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding and smiled a little. “Thanks, Cas, I appreciate it.” He stopped for a second, looking around. “First you need to know that when Dean and I were in the detention center, I started hallucinating Lucifer again.” Castiel tried to interrupt but Sam continued. “The thing is, he was a lot different from the first hallucination I had of him. He never once tried to hurt me. He also didn’t seem to understand what I tried to do by hurting my hand and kept looking surprised when I accused him of something.

And if it wasn’t strange enough like that, I swear he can touch me. The first time I saw him, I almost passed out on the floor from exhaustion and once I regained enough consciousness to be considered awake, I was lying on my bed.”

“Where is he now? Can you see him presently?”

“I have no idea and no.. I haven’t seen him since I forced him away-

“You hurt yourself again?” The angel asked, reaching out for Sam’s hand, he looked at him and scowled. “You really shouldn’t do that to yourself Sam..”

“It’s not like I enjoy it! It’s the only way I know to get rid of him..” He trailed off, watching his palm rapidly healing because of Castiel’s grace. “Anyway.. He really wasn’t happy with the deal we made, kept saying it was stupid and that Billie was even more stupid for thinking any Winchester had to die. I’m pretty sure I heard him talk about killing her too… But it’s impossible, right? Lucifer is in the Cage and the one I’m seeing is just an hallucination..”

Castiel waited a moment before answering, considering the situation. 

“Now that you say it.. the feeling I got right before I tried to kill Billie was close to an Archangel’s grace.. and it is known that they can prevent cosmical imbalances from happening..” He stopped for a second to look at Sam. “Before you say once again that it’s impossible, you have to understand that it is. We used an object we didn’t totally understand to trap an Archangel and send him back to the Cage. Something could have gone wrong and maybe it made it easier for him to reach Earth. You are his true vessel also. This is a very strong bond, so much that you could be his anchor between the Cage and Earth.” 

“But wouldn’t that be very dangerous? It means we still have the Devil on the loose right?”

“No, it isn’t. Like I said, you may be his anchor, that means he cannot stay too far from you or it would damage the bond.” Castiel fell silent for a second before looking around. “If he did kill the reaper, that means he used his grace, something that must drain him immensely. If it must be easy to let his consciousness wander on our world, interacting with it must be a lot harder. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t see him at all for a couple of days and I think it would be wise to try to do some tests once he reappears again. Can you keep me updated and we will keep this under control?”

“Of course Castiel” Sam thanked him before going in the bunker to go to his room. Now.. he only had to wait for Lucifer to come back. 

-

A week passed and still nothing. 

Two weeks and.. nothing. 

A month? Still no visit from the Devil.


	3. Let's talk (Chapter 2)

Chapter 2 

Sam felt his presence before he saw him. 

Desperate to move, to get away, even as he feels pinned in place by the sudden tension in the room, shivering and heart beating furiously because of the abrupt kick of adrenaline. His breath suddenly coming out unevenly as he feels himself at the center of someone’s attention and his nerves hyper-aware of his surroundings, his muscles tensing, ready to snap or run.

The symptoms are even more powerful because it’s been what, a month since he last felt the Archangel’s presence and he drops his book to the floor, his hands useless and shaking. Sam takes an involuntary step back and suddenly feels something hard and radiating with power against his back making him gasp and recoil away from the presence, falling on his knees to the floor. Sam almost prays to Castiel, to let him know that Lucifer finally appeared again, but a hand lands on his shoulder, warm and much more human than before. 

“Sam.. What happened to you?” the Devil asks, sounding sorry, pained and honest, too honest. He is so different than the last hallucinations that Sam suddenly believes what Castiel inquired the month before, that this Lucifer, the one that killed a reaper to break a deal that the Winchesters had made, the one that seemed to honestly care about Sam, was real and that the hallucinations Sam had had, years before, were just that, hallucinations. The way his brain used to cope with the buried memories of the Cage. An unfair and cruel method but a solution nonetheless. 

Seconds or minutes have passed, Sam honestly can’t tell, and his hands have stopped shaking, his breathing is evener. The hunter takes a deep breath and slowly stands up, pushing away from the comforting hand. He keeps his back to the Archangel and climbs on the bed before turning to sit with his back to the wall, glancing up at Lucifer. He points at the chair under his desk and sighs. 

“You should probably take a seat, it’s going to be a long story.”

The Angel looks a little shocked that Sam actually spoke to him and quietly walks to the chair and pulls it out from under the desk before sitting on it and looking across the room towards the hunter. Lucifer notes that Sam doesn’t look surprised that the Archangel whom he treated of being a hallucination last they saw each other, just moved an object. Tilting his head with curiosity, Lucifer looks at Sam and note that the way he looks at him changed. If Sam seemed to avoid his gaze like the black plague, seemingly afraid to look at the result of his fractured mind, he now looks at him in the eyes. As much as Sam used to go on about his day like the Devil wasn’t even there, he now acknowledges his presence as something real. 

“Something changed. If you really want to tell me what happened, can you start by explaining what made you change your mind about me?” Lucifer asks slowly, careful with his words as to not cause Sam to change his mind. 

“I..” Sam hesitates for a second before swallowing. “Of course.” He moves his hands in the same position as everytime he becomes uneasy because of Lucifer’s presence, his right thumb pressing in his left palm, digging. He seems to remark his move because he immediately separates his hands and places them under himself. “I.. Talked with Castiel after the escape, well he came to me first, saying that he hadn’t killed Billie and that the cosmical balance hadn’t been disrupted.” Sam pauses but doesn’t let Lucifer speak. “I wasn’t that surprised really- well yes I was because you are so much different than the last time but still.” 

Lucifer frowns, not really getting what ‘last time’ Sam is talking about but let him continue.

“One thing led to another and I confessed to him that I was seeing you again and that maybe you were the one responsible for Billie’s death. I also said that it was impossible because you’re not real. But Cas thought it was possible, that maybe because of our… bond,” he said the word with a grimace. “it was possible that you may be able to interact with our world. That you maybe aren’t a hallucination. I thought about it since the last time you appeared and it makes sense, because you are, like I said, a lot different than the last time.” Sam pauses and Lucifer takes the opportunity to learn what ‘last time’ Sam is talking about. 

“Sam, what are you referring to when you talk about ‘last time’? I don’t reckon ever hurting you intentionally, at least not to the point of making you so deeply afraid of me. I know I haven’t been kind since I was released by Castiel from the Cage, but I was focused on Amara and my Father. And after that I was too.. hurt from his departure to just look at you and see what I see now.” 

Sam holds a hand up, interrupting him and looks down at his lap. “I don’t actually think that it was your doing now but maybe my brain’s fault, or something else.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not the first time I’m having hallucinations of you and last time, I ended up in a psychiatric hospital, for a while.” Sam looks up to find that Lucifer looks shocked and angry. When the Archangel goes to speak again, Sam interrupts him once more. “Before you ask too many questions, I’ll start that never-ending story, okay?”

“I, uh..” Lucifer pauses and visibly shake himself, snapping his mouth shut before nodding at the hunter. 

“Okay then. Let’s start with what happened after falling in the Cage. Without Micheal to rule and protect Heaven, the Angels were left without any indications of what would happen after. I know it must sound surprising but Castiel tried to explain to them that they were now free of any grand design.’

‘He tried to give them free will. When that did not work, he had to search for allies. The thing is, Dean was out, he had settled down with a girl and a kid and he was happy, so Castiel looked for a way to bring me back. When he did just that, my soul was left in the Cage.” Sam pauses and Lucifer realizes that he remember when that happened. It’s the moment where Sam was the most exposed to his and his brother’s grace, so much that he could see Sam’s soul slowly burning and changing because of it. 

“I wandered with my grandfather, who Castiel had also reanimated, hunting and not so much saving people, for about a year, without my soul.” Sam looks down once more at his lap and sigh. “I won’t ever admit it to Dean or Cas but sometimes I miss it, the way I didn’t care. And you know what, that scares the hell out of me.’

‘Anyway, I stumbled upon Dean after quite some time and we got back to hunting together. He started to notice that I did not sleep and after a couple of encounters with goddesses who really couldn’t understand what was wrong with me, Dean asked Cas to just take a look at me. That’s when we learned that I didn’t have a soul.” Sam chuckles, low and hollow. “Dean almost put me down when he understood what it meant, but you know him, he kept me close and tried to find a way to fix me.   
Fast forward and they found a way to make Death get my soul back from the pit.” 

Lucifer remembers that moment clearly. He remembers how he had felt relieved that Sam was finally out from that horrible place, remembers how his relief had been short because he was now alone with his brother who was incredibly enraged that Sam was out. He remembers how he had hardly fought Micheal at all, how he had let him gain the upper hand and break him. Lucifer doesn’t remember much of what happened after that, just a lot of pain in an ocean of coldness. The Archangel realizes that Sam was staring at him and he comes to the conclusion that he must have spaced out, stuck inside his own mind with his memories. He shakes himself and straightens his posture.

“Yes.. I remember it.”

Sam looks uncertain but he continues. “After Death gave me back my soul, he put a wall in my head, it prevented me from accessing the memories from the Cage and it worked really well, at least for a while. Then Raphael came back to take control over Heaven and bring back the Apocalypse.”

That came out as a shock to Lucifer. The younger brother of all the Archangels had always been the one to dread conflict and try to avoid it at all cost. Raphael had always been the healer, the one who cared about them and helped his brothers when they got into fights. He was always the one who would go help with the fledglings when their Father created the younger generations of angels. To think of him in that role, trying to put back the Apocalypse on track, ruining every effort that people had put into stopping it before, was almost impossible, and heartbreaking. Lucifer had no doubt that Raphael changed while he had been away, but killing Gabriel, all those years ago, may have contributed to his change. After all the two younger Archangels had been terribly close, Raphael sometimes following Gabriel in his tricks and plans and Gabriel staying close with his brother and getting involved with the small and fragile angels. Gabriel had taken a liking in watching his numerous brothers and sisters grow old and wise. 

Raphael had been sensitive to any sort of conflict but Gabriel had been even worse, hiding for days at a time, refusing to come out until Lucifer and Micheal had calmed down. He had been the perfect little annoying brother and Lucifer had killed him when all he had wanted was for his big brothers to make peace again, leaving their other younger brother alone to mourn and see the consequences of their actions. If there was one thing Lucifer was gonna hate himself for a least a couple of eternities, it was to have grown apart from his family. For causing so much death and pain. 

“What happened then..?” He asked slowly, fearing the answer. 

Sam take a deep breath and took his hands out from under his thighs, placing them around his middle, hugging himself. “Castiel decided to fight Raphael but he wasn’t strong enough, so he found an ally in Crowley when he came to him, saying that he had found a way to solve both of their problems. Crowley talked about a place with thousands, millions of souls, untouched and said to be unguarded. Together, they set on a mission to try and find a way to open Purgatory.” The hunter paused, signaling Lucifer that even worse things were to come. “In the end, Castiel betrayed Crowley and sent him away, wanting to keep all of the souls to himself instead of splitting them between Heaven and Hell.’

‘His hunger for power didn’t work with us as we were still trying to bring him to reason. He… threatened us, by breaking the wall in my head and saying that he would come back to help me if we let him finish his plan. At that point, he disappeared again and let Dean and Bobby care for me, as I was stuck in a sort of coma. I don’t remember much but I know that I was in my mind and that I had to find and kill the other parts of myself.” Sam stops one more time, a haunted look passing over his features, memories of his encounter with his soulless self coming back again. Lucifer let Sam have a moment, just like the hunter had done for him minutes before. It doesn’t take long before Sam has composed himself and is back again in his narration.

“I came back to reality just in time to go and find Dean, Bobby, and Cas, but it was too late. Castiel had already opened Purgatory to take everything that place had to offer and just before I came back, Cas had killed Raphael who had made a deal with Crowley to take the souls instead. First thing I know, I’m stabbing Cas with an angel blade and he merely laughed before proclaiming himself to be our new God.” Sam scoffs, sharp and hurt. “It only took him minutes to understand that there had been other things than just souls in Purgatory. Darker and even more horrifying than anything else we’ve had ever encountered before, and they were tearing Castiel apart from the inside, trying to gain control over him.”

“The leviathans.” Lucifer breathes, understanding the gravity of the situation. Leviathans were horrible, always hungry and uncaring monsters. God had created them after the Archangels but before the lower class of angels so they were capable of killing his beautiful creations. When they started doing just that, tearing up and eating all the angels they could find, God took them out of the playing field, placed them into another realm to contain them, he imprisoned them in Purgatory, where they would be left alone for the rest of eternity, until God had to find a place to put other monsters when they died. Vampires, werewolves and any other non-human creature that wasn’t an angel or a demon would go there once they died. A pitiful fate.

“Yeah, them.” Another deep breath. “At that point, I was already having them but it wasn’t so bad, just a presence at the corner of my eye, rarely even talking.”

“Them?”

“The hallucinations of you.” Sam looks up and locks eyes with Lucifer. “Of course, it wasn’t the worst thing that was happening so I tried to ignore it and work on the more pressing matters, a crazy angel with God-like powers, gone rogue. Because Cas had ingrained it in his skull that it was time for a massive cleaning. Every angel that had been associated with Raphael was killed, and every human that spoke in the name of God for selfish reasons were exterminated. Castiel helped some people along the way but it was nothing compared to the ones he killed. Fast forward to a couple of weeks and he couldn't fight the monsters inside of him any longer. We tried to bind Death to kill Castiel but it didn’t work, all we got was an opportunity to send the souls back in Purgatory, which was really good in itself, and an enraged brother when he learned that I was having hallucinations of you. In the end, we managed to get Castiel to abandon the souls, but the leviathans stayed. They took control and disappeared into our municipal water, spreading fast and wide. Castiel disappeared as well that day.’

‘After that, it was a race against the clock and we didn’t know how much time was left when the timer was set. The thing was that leviathans are intelligent, really smart monsters, so they knew not to bring attention to them until they were ready and before they made their first move, I was separated from Dean. I.. lost my conviction, my hope for a while until I saw Dean again, but in just that little space of time, I let it- them, I don’t even know anymore, in. And once I did it once, there was no coming back. That presence, the one that took your identity, your voice, your appearance, that had been just a shadow at the corner of my eyes, was now screaming and raging, all day and all night long. I was lucky if I could close my eyes and sleep for a couple of minutes” 

Lucifer didn’t exactly know how he was feeling, just that he now knew why his presence hurt Sam so much. Lucifer knew what sleep deprivation and a constant presence could do to someone, he knew it very well. He could still remember how it had felt when he understood that the mark his Father had given him, the key that kept the Darkness trapped, wasn’t a gift by any means, but a curse. He had thought himself to be strong enough to not be corrupted by the beautiful voice that whispered in his mind, asked him to release her, to make certain things. He had thought that he, the Lightbringer, the one which God loved most, would be strong enough to stay pure.   
How wrong had he been.  
It took quite some time for the mark to truly corrupt him but once it started to do so, Lucifer had no chance of fighting it. 

When the humans were created and God asked the angels to love them more than their Father, the voice whispered to him that God was abandoning them to their fate, fleeing his duty as Father of all. He believed it.

Lucifer tried to talk to his Father, to reason him and make him understand but suddenly, the Lightbringer wasn’t the most perfect of all. God accused Lucifer of not believing in Him and ignored his yells and pleas. And so the brokenhearted Archangel set down on a path to find a way to show his brothers and sisters, to show his Father, that his perfect little pure humans weren’t so perfect after all. He listened to the voice and believed what it said more and more. But the voice let him down when, finally, Lucifer committed the first crime of all, when he showed them all how humans were weak and so easy to corrupt, when he created the first demon, even if it hadn’t been his intention. 

In the moment where Lucifer had stared up at his brother’s lance as he heard his Father damn him to the darkest pit of Hell, the sweet voice had not once talked and never had until the first demon had completed it’s task and had created another one of these disgusting alter ego of all these humans, until the mark had been passed down to Cain, the first man to kill, but not the first to betray. No, that title was held by Lucifer’s brother, Micheal, who had sent him down into the Cage where he had met the other torture, sleep deprivation. Angels do not sleep on a daily basis like humans do but they do however welcome the state of unconsciousness every century or so, just for their pleasure. Lucifer had never found it very pleasurable, to lose control over everything like that. While sleeping, you aren’t aware of your surroundings, and make it impossible to be ready for any situation and let’s just that it wasn’t really Lucifer’s thing.

In the cage, however, Lucifer would have given away his grace for only a couple of minutes of unconsciousness, a very low ratio when you understood how long Lucifer had stayed down there, in that cage.   
The Archangel now knew how long he had been down there and just the number scared him, because should you know, Lucifer had had time to lose his mind countless of times in the almost billion of years of confinement. Billion.  
Never mind that the Cage had been built with the sole purpose of making Lucifer think about what he had done. Sleeping wasn’t something possible down there, but when the Archangel had been stuck with his brother and Sam, he had put almost every effort that wasn’t on protecting the hunter, on making it able for him to find sleep. He had used a lot of his grace to try to soothe Sam’s soul, to try to protect it from the madness that the Cage induced. At one point, Lucifer had feared that he was interfering with Sam’s being so much that he was changing him, but then he found himself too weak too keep Micheal away and had to endure his rage, forgetting about the possible problem. 

“Lucifer.” A voice interrupted his thoughts and he looked back at the bed to find Sam’s curious eyes.

“Sorry.” The Archangel mumbles softly, scratching the back of his head. “Spaced out again didn't I?” 

“Yeah, just a little, I don’t really mind.” Sam answers lightly before taking a deep breath and continuing. “So as I said just before I realized you weren’t listening,” Lucifer swears Sam is teasing him. “I ended up in a hospital because of an accident, and they didn’t release me. They kept me in the psychiatric ward for at least a couple of days, but.. they felt like weeks. Anyway, the doctors and staffed tried to drug me with whatever they had that was supposed to make me sleep but nothing worked. Dean… Dean as you can imagine, found a way to fix me, some guy named Emanuel that every hunters and acquaintance we had, talked about as some kind of miracle worker. Turns out that the poor amnesiac guy is Castiel and when he gets his memory back, he immediately tries to reconstruct the wall Death gave me but you know us, no such luck, the wall was completely dissolved and there wasn’t any way for Cas to heal it.” One more pause, just long enough for Sam to compose himself again. “So Cas decided to do the only thing that seemed to be able to work. He took the hallucinations.” 

“What happened to him after?”

“He.. He kinda stopped functioning, stopped talking, moving and well, being Cas in general.We had to leave him in the hospital with Meg for a while and continue hunting the leviathans.” Sam looks at his phone on the bed winces. “Look, I understand you want to know what happened while you were downstairs, even if I don’t understand why, but we don’t have much time until Dean comes through that door because I haven’t been out of my room since this morning. So, to make it shorter, I’ll just tell you what happened but won’t go into too many details, okay? You can always ask some questions later if you want.”

Lucifer thinks about it for a second before agreeing.

“Okay, so here comes the short version. After we killed Dick Roman, the “leader” of the leviathans, Dean and Castiel got sucked in with him in Purgatory. For the year they were in that hole, I had settled down with a girl and a dog, I know, it’s completely cliché but still. Due to her ex-husband coming back, I went back to one of our safe houses and got surprised by Dean. I think you can imagine how well he took it when he understood that I hadn’t tried to find him.” Sam looks away for a second, signs of guilt written all over his face, before continuing. 

“After that, we tried to find Kevin, a prophet of the Lord who helped us with the leviathan problem by reading the leviathan tablet. We got there just before Crowley could take him and we went to see his mother, just before he disappeared for a while and turns out he had been kidnapped by Crowley after that. We got him out, but only with half of the demon tablet. After that, we got to meet Henry Winchester, our grandfather, when he was running away from a knight of Hell named Abaddon. Turns out our Winchester ancestors were Men of Letters, an organization of chroniclers of the unknown and unexplained that had immense knowledge, which they usually passed to hunters worthy. He died shortly after that, protecting the key of the headquarters. After that, we found the bunker and I took up the lead as the next legacy and became a Man of Letters. The thing is, Abaddon was still free and we needed to find a way to change that. Fast forward and Kevin found a way to close the gates of Hell, definitely. You know Dean, he volunteered to be the one to do the trials but in the end, I was the one to ‘bathe in a hellhound’s blood’, and started the trials.” 

Realisation dawns on Lucifer as he remembers what the consequences of doing the trials were. “You did what?” He asks suddenly, rising to his feet, looking at the hunter and easily imagining what it must have done to him. How his body must have slowly shut down, starting by his lungs slowly breaking down and then every other organ doing the same. “How far did you go?” he asks before Sam has time to answer the first question.

Sam hesitates, not sure why the Archangel is suddenly so angry. “I.. I was going to use my last syringe of purified blood when Dean stopped me.”

“Last? That means the trials had already started to kill you.” He pauses as a terrifying thought crosses his mind. “It had already started to eliminate your soul.” Lucifer freeze and looks at Sam, look at his being, his soul, not just his body. He suddenly understands why Sam’s presence is so small, why his soul that had once been a blinding light was now a faint, barely noticeable glow. The Archangel frowns and walks closer to the hunter, inspecting his movements and how Sam’s soul isn’t just weak, it’s mismatched, wrong and out of sync with his body. “How are you even alive?” he asks slowly, scared of the answer.

Sam shifts on the bed, uneasy. “While I was doing the trials, we found Metatron for advices, not knowing how bad the man was. He ended up convincing Cas to initiate another trial but he lied to him and Cas end up making the angels fall.” he stops and looks at the Archangel “Fall in like, their wings got burned and they couldn’t go back to heaven.” 

A horrified shiver makes it’s way up Lucifer’s spine and he is immediately hyper-aware of his own wings, not being able to think of something more horrible to happen to an angel but losing their grace. 

“Dean.. prayed to whoever was listening that he needed help and that he would owe a favor to the one who would provide such help. An angel came to answer his prayer and said he was named Ezekiel. He explained to Dean that he had been injured in the Fall and needed a good vessel to heal.” 

Lucifer suddenly has a bad feeling about this. 

“Dean agreed and Ezekiel came to find me in my mind, looking like Dean.. Just at the moment I was gonna move on with Death. He tricked me into saying yes and take me as a vessel.” Sam stops to take a shuddering breath and looks away.

The Archangel is shocked by how angry this makes him, that someone took something so precious from him, so personal. A ‘yes’ shouldn’t be said lightly nor should it be forced or stolen. What Sam went through.. getting possessed by an angel is no small thing. You share thoughts and desires and experiences, being possessed by an angel should be done because there is trust between the two, not hatred or fear. Lucifer hates his brothers and sisters for forgetting or ignoring that. Even when he had asked Sam for permission, the first time, he had asked plainly and explained what it inquired. He hadn’t lied to Sam.   
Lucifer rules down his anger and walks closer to the bed and sits beside Sam.

“I promise, on my life and all that I am, that it will never happen again.” He swears honestly.

It takes Sam a moment before he starts to talk again and he doesn’t lift his head up, just talks with his face hidden by his hair, not daring to come out and face the world again. “Dean learned that Ezekiel had died during the fall and that the one that was possessing me was actually named Gadreel. After that, everything went downhill. Gadreel made me kill Kevin and do numerous other horrible things... The worse thing about what happened is that I had no fucking idea I was being possessed, Gadreel just kept pushing me at the back of my head and I just believed Dean’s lies, even if I knew he was lying. I was just.. just taking the easy way out, I was already starting to accept that maybe I did not deserve good things. That because of what I did, what I am,” Sam’s breath hitched and Lucifer immediately knew he was talking about Azazel’s blood. “..pain and death just fucking cling on to me. Everybody that comes so much as near me dies or worse.” 

Sam gets up and starts pacing in his room, his hands shaking and his breath coming up unevenly. Lucifer can see that the hunter is having a panic attack, his distress coming off in waves off him and the Archangel can also see that it isn’t the first time he had one because of this subject.

Lucifer has to do something or something bad is gonna happen. He starts by using a little of his still healing grace, killing that reaper really had drained him, to soundproof the room, not wanting Dean to hear something and coming in at a bad time. Next, he walks closer to Sam and hesitates for a couple of seconds before letting his grace wash over his own back, forcing his wings to be visible. He forces himself to forget about how scared and unsure he is about showing a part of that is so damaged, one that saw and lived through every single one of his own trials, each mistake and betrayal. Instead, he forces himself to be calm, to be relaxed and caring. He infuses these thoughts and feelings to every move he makes, to his grace and reaches out to Sam. 

The Archangel can clearly hear how Sam’s breath hitches when he moves to stand by his side when his wing drapes itself around his shoulders. Lucifer slowly takes the hunter by the shoulder and guides him to his bed, helps him sit down, keeping his wing curled around him. He realizes after a couple of seconds that Sam is clutching at his wing, burrowing deep into the damaged feathers in a way that should hurt like hell but it doesn’t. 

“Sam.. whatever you may believe or think, you deserve good things, you are not cursed.” Lucifer feels how Sam tenses up at that, how he gets ready to argue that yes he is, has been ever since Azazel fed him his blood and something in the Archangel breaks a little more at that. The fact that this man that has saved countless lives, that stopped the apocalypse more than one time, that stood his ground against Archangels and demons and whatever horrible creature that came in his way, thinks of himself as impure, saddens him beyond the point of reason. He presses his wing against Sam and brings the other one around his own side, letting it fall on his and Sam’s lap.   
“No Sam, you haven’t been since the Cage. Every drop of blood he had given you is long gone, you are perfectly pure.”

“But why does everyone around me dies? Almost everybody that I was close too is dead. Jess, Helen, Jo, Ash, Bobby, Cas.. Dean..”

“Dean is still there for you, and so is Castiel-”

“But they still fucking died! They kept dying over and over again!” Sam tried to get up and continue pacing around the room, but the Archangel uses his wing to keep the hunter in place, proving that his wings aren’t just for show, that they are still as powerful as him.

“Sam, they are here right now-”

“Shut up!” Sam growls under his breath, his body shaking from his distress and rage. “Let me finish the goddamn story before you start talking about things, because right now, you don’t know shit.’

‘You say I still have Dean and Cas, but do they want me to count on them after all that time? After all these mistakes I’ve done, the bad choices I can’t seem to learn from!   
What you still don’t know is that when we learned that Abbadon was a fucking knight of hell, Dean left with Crowley to try to find Cain. Does that name ring a bell? He left to find the first killer because he needed the first blade, the only weapon that would kill the bitch. And you know what happened? Cain gave him the fucking mark, you know which one!  
After that, everything was almost okay, except the fact that Dean was hunting for the fun and killed innocents. He was okay until Metatron killed him. Until he woke up with black eyes and disappeared with the king of hell. Until I finally found him and brought him back here. Until I tried to cure him. Until he got human enough to get out of the traps. ‘Til he fucking tried to kill me with a hammer.   
After I cured him, the mark was still there! That curse was still on my brother and nothing had changed! I got more than one of our most trusted friends killed in the process of trying to find a way to get the mark off him and that got him pissed, so he went to find a solution. He went to Death to ask him if he could send him to another dimension or something but there was one condition.-”

“He had to kill you.” Lucifer breathes softly.

Sam flinches, as if just mentioning it caused him pain. “Yeah.” He whispers.   
“Dean had to kill me so I wouldn’t try to get him back.. Death.. Death gave him his scythe.”

If Sam had been killed by Death’s scythe, he would have been truly gone. He wouldn’t have gone to Heaven or Hell, nor to the Empty or Purgatory. His soul would have been just lost, every particle, every atom, every little spark that made Sam who he was, would have been disintegrated. There wouldn’t have been any chance to bring him back. God wouldn’t have been able to bring him back. 

“Dean was about to go for it. To kill me. But then my brother was back, he had shoved down the power of the mark and had taken back control. He.. He did the only thing that seemed to be possible at the time and killed Death, breaking the mark at the same time. That day.. I got my brother back, but we set something free.”

“The Darkness.”

“Yes.”

A beat passes before any of them speaks again. 

“So you tell me.. Do Cas and Dean still want me to rely on them? After Cas got his grace stolen, after Dean got transformed into one of the monsters we kill?” It wasn’t just a simple question, Sam wasn’t just asking, he was begging Lucifer for an answer to a question that surely haunted him every day. He was asking for a reason to keep fighting. 

“Sam..” Lucifer started “You know them, of-” he never got to finish because suddenly someone opening the door and waltzing in. 

“Sam I have to talk to you about Kelly and the Nephilim. I may have a lead on them-” Castiel stopped speaking when he saw Sam on the bed. “Is.. everything alright?” He asked slowly.

“No Cas, it’s not alright. Lucifer finally appeared again and-” Sam realized that the warmth coming from the wing was gone and he looked around realizing suddenly how empty the room felt like without the Archangel in it. “He’s gone.”

 

-

 

Far from there, in Hell, Lucifer was picking at the locks of his restraints, trying to solve the puzzle. Sam had said that he had had hallucinations of him and that wasn’t something simple. Hallucinations this complex were usually made by someone or something. Someone who had been able to mimic him, to take his identity and trick Sam. Images of his brother’s face from the time where Sam had been rescued came flooding back in his mind. How Micheal had been ready to rip him to shreds, to kill him over and over again. The thing is, after a moment, reactions to torture can become rare and insufficient. If Lucifer was currently able to make himself visible and corporeal because of the bond between him and his true vessel, Sam, maybe after having been knocked out pretty bad.. 

“Crowley!” He called suddenly and waited for a couple of seconds before he saw Crowley opening the door and stepping through. 

“What now, pet?” The king of Hell asked impatiently.

“Would you be so kind as to arrange a reunion between me and my beloved brother? There are some things I need to talk to him about.”

“What’s in it for me?” Crowley asked cautiously. 

“What do you want?”


End file.
